A Matter of Patience
by AssaultSloth
Summary: A series of oneshots primarily focusing on the many colorful minor characters in the Avatar universe. Bumi and Toph earthbend the rules to pieces! Sokka and Hakoda cheat death in a father-son fishing trip! The Combustion Man's tragic origins explored!
1. A Matter of Patience: Bumi and Toph

A Matter of Patience: Bumi

Summary: Bumi finds out he isn't the only master of Neutral Jing. Set between seasons 1 and 2.

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Bumi, King of Omashu, was a mad genius. A mad genius that had far too much on his plate already to listen to a bunch of pig-headed misers complain about the state of the Earth Kingdom's economy. Swathed in a flowing set of yellow robes, Bumi complained aloud as he hurried through his castle, the cavernous halls magnifying his mumblings one hundred fold. Nearby servants took no notice of the King's passing, well used to his apparent senility by now. The Earth was in turmoil. Its destiny, the very fate of all people, would be decided soon, and Bumi knew that he had a part to play in it. He knew Aang would return to Omashu, and he knew the boy would need an earthbending teacher.

He also knew, however, that Aang's previous visit to Omashu had not gone unnoticed. It was only a matter of time before the Fire Nation attacked Omashu. Fire Nation scouts had been spotted dangerously close to its mighty walls, and what with its value to the Earth Kingdom, its isolation from outside aid, and (he liked to think) incredibly threatening leader, Omashu stood as a very attractive target for the fire armies. Yes, only a matter of time, and Bumi would cede the city to the Fire Nation. He would let them occupy it and not offer the slightest action in resistance, for Bumi was a master of neutral jing. He would lull his enemies into a false sense of security and then, when the moment was ripe, he would strike with unimaginable fury. It had served him well in the past, and he knew it would serve him well again.

Of course, that didn't mean he couldn't use the other eighty-four jings while he waited. He was currently involved in jing number forty-two; damage mitigation through preparedness. He couldn't tell anyone his plans, for word would spread and if the Fire Nation saw him as anything but a senile old man, he might well just be executed and his careful farce would be for naught. Still, Bumi had no intent to let his plan cost more lives than it had to, so he had been steadily whittling away the castle's staff for the past few weeks. His cooks, his tailors, his closest advisors, everyone. When the Fire Nation finally arrived, anyone at all caught within the castle could be in terrible danger, and Bumi would have none of that. Of course, the layoffs had not made Bumi particularly popular, but he didn't see this as an issue of much gravity. When all was said and done, they would understand, and know why he was their king. He just had to have patience, and the world would see his wisdom.

He hadn't fired them all, of course. Many, too dear to him to remove so callously, he had simply sent away. His chief advisor, Obis, he had sent on a long errand to Ba Sing Se, which he knew would occupy the man for weeks. Obis was no fool either, and had clearly recognized that Bumi wanted him gone, but Bumi offered only his usual misaligned stare as explanation and his advisor had left dutifully and without question. Unfortunately, Bumi could not dismiss his guards, for their absence would be an immediate source of suspicion for outside onlookers. Sacrifices had to be made for any victory, and Bumi had been forced to weigh their potential deaths against the greater good.

Still, Bumi did not know how Aang would fit into this equation. Even if the young Avatar were to arrive that very evening, and even if they trained furiously every day thereafter and did nothing else, Bumi probably wouldn't have enough time to adequately educate the boy before the enemy arrived. And while Bumi had all the time in the world to meditate in a Fire Nation cell, awaiting the perfect chance to strike, he knew that Aang did not. Some other solution would be necessary. Precisely what that solution might be, though, was evading even Bumi, the mad genius, at the moment. _Neutral Jing_, he reminded himself to soothe his tumultuous mind as he stepped into the sunlight on one of his castle's enormous jutting balconies, _a matter of patience._ _A solution will present itself._

A great rectangular table, many feet wide and made of stone, had been set up on the balcony beneath the eastern tower, suspending the dinner guests over the majesty of Omashu. A stone roof ringed with peculiar gargoyles of every kind jutted out over the heads of the guests and kept the table nicely shaded from the harsh afternoon sun. Just like practically everything in Omashu, the floors were stone, the walls were stone, the chairs were stone, and so on.

At the head of the table sat a large (stone) throne, upon which Bumi seated himself. Those servants he had not yet fired bustled to and fro, bedecking the table with all manner of expensive dishes. Bumi sighed to the empty table, putting his head in his hands. He wanted dearly to call the meal off, but he all too clearly remembered Obis' parting words as the younger man had set off for Ba Sing Se. _Attend the feast, Bumi… And for spirits' sake behave yourself_. Bumi grumbled for a few more moments. He always hated this sort of meeting. Though ostensibly an informal dinner, these particular guests, Donih from Omashu, Lao from Gaoling, Enghis of the Mongils, Shiush and Kirthi of Iyer, and all the others, were men of great wealth and standing, and always got into passionate speeches about tariffs and taxes and money ad nauseum. It all became frightfully boring for the notoriously playful king, who saw through their miserly squabbles in a heartbeat. _Ahh well_, he thought, giving up. He needed the support of the kingdom's nobility, and sacrifices had to be made. With a final, resolute sigh, Bumi gestured to his servants to bring in the guests.

Bumi stood and put on a more pleasant face as the procession of guests stepped onto the balcony. The men were laughing and talking jovially, each one dressed in his finest clothes. Many were accompanied by their wives and some even with children, no doubt attempting to impress the King of Omashu with their impeccable behavior. Bumi greeted each one warmly with hearty handshakes and inane comments.

"Hello, everybody! How are you? Enghis, Enghis… How's the grandson? Still takin' after his old man? Shiush, I heard about your pest problem. Those frogweasels can be very tricky! I'm sure you'll be rid of them soon enough… Don't use traps, though, they'll just _weasel_ out of them, instead of croaking!" he snorted uproariously at his own silly jokes. His ridiculous behavior was an act, in part (jing number eleven; placating foes into underestimating you), but Bumi did earnestly enjoy messing with people. Having met with the eccentric king so many times before, the guests were all used to his insane sense of humor. Some endured the jokes in silence, others chuckled politely, and still others, anxious for a good name with the powerful king, shared in a forced bout of laughter. It didn't matter to Bumi, however. After all, he made himself laugh. Who needed any more than that?

As luck would have it, though, when Bumi stepped over to Lao and his wife he noticed a new guest, and a fresh pair of ears for his jokes. A little girl, around Aang's age, with long, coal-black hair pulled into elegant braids and clothed in expensive green garments clung to her mother's dress with one hand. Her painted face was drawn into a pouting sneer, but she stood straight with practiced nobility. Bumi cackled in genuine delight.

"And who do we have here?" he asked, staring down kindly at the porcelain doll of a girl. She angled her face to meet his eyes, but overshot and looked instead about a foot above the king's hunched shoulders, to about (he noticed, intrigued) where his eyes would be if he stood up straight.

"My name is Toph Bei Fong" she answered eloquently, clearly none too pleased to be here. _You and me both, little Toph_, Bumi thought.

"Our daughter, King Bumi," Lao pointed out as said King shook his hand.

"Of course, of course. A welcome and honored guest." Bumi looked again to Toph, whose pale eyes didn't move an inch, before moving on to the next waiting hand.

The greetings complete, the guests took their seats. Bumi stood before his throne and lifted a goblet of wine in a toast.

"Thank you all for coming! I had thought, in these times of war, that perhaps this yearly tradition of ours was becoming too burdensome for you all to continue!" He said this not without some measure of hope, but was met only by horrified faces, as if to say nothing was farther from the truth. "But my advisors told me otherwise and indeed! Here you are, safe and sound. I hope your journeys treated you well?" There was a murmur of answer. "So for now, let us, some of the Southern Earth Kingdom's most celebrated men, eat and speak, because that food's not getting' any warmer!" There was a resounding 'hear hear' from the men at the table and each sat down to his meal.

Servants worked furiously to keep everyone happy. Such rich men did not come with simple palates, and everything had to be fastidiously and perfectly prepared. Bumi enjoyed a great plate of lettuce, as always, only halfway listening to the conversation Lao and Donih, the closest two men, had struck up with him. He offered the occasional 'Mmhmm' and 'Uhuh' but otherwise let them wax poetic about gold (or whatever it was that rich men waxed poetic about these days) uninterrupted. It wasn't nearly long enough before one of the men at the other end of the pinged his goblet for attention and began a lengthy speech about how the poor weren't taxed enough or something. Bumi practically groaned under the boring words, which almost felt like physical blows against his world-weary mind, but remembered his promise to behave.

Leaning down on one arm for support, Bumi noticed Toph, sitting dignified a few places down and looking just as miserable as Bumi felt. She kept her head level and did not look at anything, not even her food, as she picked at her meal. To another, she might have appeared an average rich brat, but Bumi could see something else there. He had a way with manipulating people, which meant necessarily that he had a way with understanding people, and he understood that little Toph was not all she seemed. She was blind, he decided, but entirely too proud and too shielded to be just another girl. It seemed to Bumi that she was holding something in, attempting to hide a secret and, in doing so, made herself that much more transparent to a mad genius.

Bumi allowed an insane grin to form, nodding absently at what the current speaker was saying. He pondered little Toph for some moments before he felt a burst of inspiration. Without taking his eyes off of the speaker nor moving at all, he earthbended one of the great rock floor tiles behind him up an inch or so and let it drop back into place. Only one with the sharpest eyes could have seen him do it, but Toph's head whirled around like a shot, her tiny face defensive and confused. Bumi's grin grew all the wider as she returned to her meal. So… she was an earthbender. Only an earthbender could have felt the tile move and Bumi felt immediately certain that she was one of some talent. Not only that, but she was blind. Bumi's sharp mind recalled whispers of a blind earthbending prodigy named The Blind Bandit (one of his guards was from Gaoling and followed the Earth Rumble tournaments with gusto, even if he could only do so from afar.) It seemed almost crazy to suspect that such a young girl could be such a powerful warrior, but stranger things had happened. Aang was a young boy and perhaps the most powerful person on the planet. Lost in thought but satisfied with his sleuthing, Bumi chewed his salad absently.

After the first speaker had concluded, a second stood to speak, and then a third. Each one droned on and on, causing both Bumi and Toph to roll their eyes and grumble.

His boredom finally becoming unbearable, Bumi decided he would try communicating with the little girl. She could obviously use some entertainment. Why not have a little fun? Surely Toph couldn't be as boring as this same old crowd. Again using no physical movement, no outward sign at all, Bumi bended the rocks several feet beneath them, creating a miniature cavern under the floor. Again, Toph seemed to notice, and her features tightened in surprise. Checking to see that no one else had noticed his impromptu addition to the castle (there was probably quite a bump protruding from the ceiling of the floor below, he supposed… Hopefully the servants wouldn't discover it until he had chance to put it back), Bumi continued to feign interest in the speaker.

He watched Toph through the corner of his vision. The girl didn't move her eyes, but Bumi could tell her ears were cocked in search for the earthbender responsible. She hadn't attended one of these meetings in the past, so she couldn't know, as Bumi did, that none of these vacuous men had an ounce of bending talent. Opting to give her a clue, Bumi tapped his foot as he bent several head-sized rocks into the cavern below. This time, her head whipped around to face him, her features accusing. She stared for a few seconds as Bumi looked away innocently, whistling a cacophonous tune. Eventually, she returned her empty gaze to her platter, but her face remained suspicious.

After a moment, Bumi tapped his foot again, and one of the rocks he had placed in his hidden little cavern stood up on end and split in half, forming a mouth like gash. A few taps later, and it came to resemble the fat jowls and bald head of the current speaker, a sweaty, distasteful man named Athou who had become rich on the silk market. A look of restrained curiousity slowly crept over Toph's face. Encouraged, Bumi continued. Waving his big toe in small circles, like a wand, Bumi made the stone head mockingly mime the speaker's words. Bumi had heard them all before, so he could mock the man with practiced efficiency, even making the crude rock puppet pause frequently to wipe its sweaty brow in sync with the real man at the table. Toph allowed a small smile to form before hiding it away again, so Bumi quickly formed a body for his puppet (a grotesquely fat boulder of a body, at that) and had the construct waddle around in the little cavern, over-emoting every syllable the fat man uttered. Toph's smile grew and grew and when Bumi finally crushed the long-winded puppet under a slab of rock, she let out a loud giggle.

Lao silently reprimanded his daughter, and both Toph and Bumi had to guiltily hide their smiles and behave themselves. After only a few moments, though, a new and equally boring speaker began, and Bumi felt the rocks in the cavern below shift. Toph grinned at him briefly as she formed her own puppet, a parody of the newer, thinner speaker. Her puppet rose shakily to its feet as Bumi reforged his own construct. The two of them let out a stream of snickering as they had their little pets box and dance and mock the table. Toph's puppet's movements were crude and imprecise at first, but in watching Bumi (who had years of practice with earth puppets) she refined her technique impressively fast. It was only a few minutes (and several rude outbursts of giggling) later that she had full control over the puppet and had it moving with the same grace as Bumi's, a feat which impressed the old king to no end. He wished some of his other earthbending friends would join his shenanigans with the same gusto, but thusfar none had.

Bumi and Toph shared in their suppressed laughter as they acted out little scenes, most ending with one or both of the characters exploding into a rain of pebbles. When Toph's golem sprouted an earthen dress during an eerily perfect mock soliloquy, the King and the little blind girl could contain their laughter no longer and simultaneously burst into noisy guffaws. Toph's musical giggles seemed to weave around Bumi's harsher snorts and laughs as he pounded the table with his large fist.

The entire table turned to look at the wildly laughing Toph and Bumi, quizzical expressions on their faces as they tried to figure out what was so funny. Some apparently believed some aspect of the speech had amused the pair so much, and hesitantly joined in to avoid looking stupid. Bumi, recovering from his laughter and wiping tears from his eyes, waved a hand at the speaker, urging him to continue. With a reluctant look at the kooky king, he did so.

As the speeches droned on, Toph and Bumi exchanged a number of tentative glances at one another, each one trying to encourage the other into some sort of new prank, funny enough to distract them. More than one stone plate slid away from an incoming fork, eliciting some snickering, but it was when Toph pulverized one of the noses off of the gargoyles leering above, causing a steady trickle of sand to land on the fat man's bald head that they exploded into peals of laughter again, again earning them dirty looks and Toph a harsh warning from her father.

"I'm sorry, Athou," Bumi admitted to the not-at-all-pleased merchant, still shaking a bit from laughter. "I guess this place isn't holding together quite as well as it used to!" Bumi felt a little sorry for getting Toph in trouble, but she didn't seem to mind, as she immediately began to erode the other gargoyles, causing people to shift their plates away from the streams of sand (which inexplicably diverted themselves to follow the meals around). Bumi chortled along with her, but, almost instantaneously, he stopped to listen.

A faint tremor moved through the Earth, far too weak for any average person, or even any average earthbender, to notice. Bumi noticed, however, and understood. To his surprise and awe, Toph had stopped at the very same instant, and now appeared, like Bumi, to be listening intently. The Earth was speaking, and only a chosen few, the few who could hear it, knew that an earthquake was heading their way. Earthquakes had become more and more common recently, no doubt because the Earth itself could sense the growing tension on its surface. The two of them exchanged a knowing look but made no effort to stop the current long-winded speech. Bumi drained his cup so it wouldn't spill and braced himself for the coming tremors, his mind amazed that a girl so young could rival his own connection with the planet. He had always thought that anyone could hear the Earth if they tried, but that being old as dirt helped quite a bit.

True to her word, Earth shook mightily mere minutes later, interrupting the speaker and invoking a brief murmur of surprise from the guests. Plates clattered, goblets spilled, and people dropped to the floor with rehearsed calm. The earthquake persisted, intensifying, and only Bumi and Toph remained in their seats. Some of the gargoyles from high above were shaken loose and fell like bullets towards the group, only to be diverted with confident waves of Bumi's hand. Toph sat, unconcerned even as rock thundered down around her. The two of them exchanged goofy grins and continued to eat with comical nonchalance, as if nothing were happening at all. Eventually, though, the tremors subsided and the dinner guests stood and brushed themselves off, relieved to have weathered another disaster.

A great crack, however, changed their tone of relief to one of fear. All eyes went to the enormous eastern tower, which towered high above their heads, as a fissure worked its way up the stonework. Time seemed to proceed in slow motion as the entire turret, thousands of tons of carved stone, peeled away from the castle and started to fall.

Bumi was on his feet in an instant, lifting his muscled arms in the air to slow the tower's descent. He strained, grinding his already flat teeth together with the great exertion, as the tower slowed to a stop mere feet above the dinner party, its enormous weight held up by one seemingly-frail old man. The guests cowered to the floor, not bothering to run, as they knew if Bumi couldn't stop the tower, their fate was sealed already. So they watched in great suspense as one of the greatest earthbenders in the world strained and fought against the mighty inertia of his element.

Bumi's feet sank into the ground, cracking the solid rock floor like it was mere glass. He felt the Earth's strength course through his body as he slowly extended his arms again and the tower slowly, slowly began its ponderous trip back upwards. Inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, Bumi worked the fallen tower back up to where from it had been cut. To call it strenuous would be an understatement and Bumi's brow dripped copiously with sweat.

Suddenly, he felt as if a great burden were lifted from his shoulders. The tower felt immediately lighter, and he looked around, surprised, to see Toph standing, her arms above her head, helping him heft the building back into place. Her frail form stood in stark contrast with his pillar-like physique, but she was undeniably, unbelievably mighty. With her help, it took only a few moments for the tower to be eased back into place and braced with a few newly-bended buttresses of rock.

Bumi let out a great grunt of relief as he finally let go of the tower, which held steadily. The guests released their collective breath, rose to their feet, and clapped emphatically for his lifesaving bending. Bumi tried to respond in kind but couldn't tear his eyes away from Toph, who sat pleasantly in her seat as if nothing had happened. Several had noticed her involvement, laughed in the fashion one laughs at a precocious child, and spoke to her good-naturedly, though they cleary upset the girl with their patronizing tones.

"A fine job, Toph," they said, all smiles. "Perhaps one day you will be as great a bender as Bumi himself!" Toph let out an irritated huff, clearly indignant at the very suggestion, but said nothing. Lao forced a laugh.

"Perhaps one day" he said uncomfortably, his tone clearly indicating how unlikely he thought that. Bumi only steadily found the use of words again.

"A fine job, indeed," Bumi said, his face abeam with great pride for Toph and the noble element they shared. "Thank you for your help, Toph." Toph smiled at him and spoke in her most showy, adorable voice.

"You are most welcome, Your Highness" she responded sweetly, eliciting a round of 'Awwww's' from the audience. Only the two of them knew just how serious they really were.

The shock of nearly dying abated, the feast resumed, but after such a close call, no one really seemed to retain much of an appetite. Some guests remained to speak to one another, while others rushed off in a huff, muttering about something Bumi could only hazard a guess at. Bumi himself settled back into his chair, feeling his old joints settle and pop uncomfortably. Realizing his time with Toph was ending, Bumi decided to ask her about the suspicion that had been sneaking around in his mind since they had started their childish pranks. Returning his mind to the cavern, he bent the pulverized puppets into an image of Toph, reshaped her surroundings into an arena of sorts, and had her lift a little stone belt to a cheering crowd. The likeness was uncanny, and the message was clear: ARE YOU THE BLIND BANDIT?

Toph's mouth opened in surprise as she realized what Bumi was asking. After a momentary hesitation, she smiled and put a solitary finger to her lips, cocking her head and 'staring' right at Bumi. She was cute and she knew it, and Bumi knew it too. How could he say no to that? He smiled back warmly and nodded, folding his hands in front of him and bending the cavern and the Toph puppet back into the flooring, as if they had never existed. As the Bei Fongs left (clearly none too pleased with Toph's behavior), the Blind Bandit's beaming face caught Bumi's eye one last time. She wouldn't risk a wave, but Bumi knew she would miss him as much as he would miss her.

The last one at the table, Bumi was lost in thought as the servants cleaned up around him. This had been the best of these feasts he had ever attended. He had managed to entertain a young girl, and likewise be entertained, instead of merely being bored by the windbags! Bumi couldn't help but let out a loud cackle (which the servants ignored, well used to it by now). Toph was a master earthbender by anyone's definition. But what was more, she was a master of neutral jing, and clearly knew the Earth just as innately as Bumi himself. Bumi nodded. He knew, now, what to do, when Aang finally returned.

_A matter of patience_, he repeated to himself with a grin. A solution had presented itself.

A/N: Well, there you have it. My first attempt at fanfiction, hope you enjoyed it. By the way, some of the concepts in this story were inspired by an extremely awesome Bumi-centric piece called Nothing, by DarkSeverus. At the risk of being upstaged, I strongly suggest you check it out.

A/N2: Update – I am repurposing this story into a short collection of sorts, dedicated to assorted auxiliary characters in Avatar. I doubt I will update it frequently, if at all, but as the characters I wish to use will largely not show up in the filters, I think consolidating them will make them more accessible.


	2. Worth It: Hakoda and Sokka

Worth It: Hakoda

Summary: Hakoda takes Sokka hunting for the first time.

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Sokka was ready in a heartbeat. Despite his history of deep sleep, the six year-old leapt from the top of the bunk beds he shared with his sister almost as soon as Hakoda had crept in the room. The excitement was clear in Sokka's wide blue eyes, but he moved with controlled determination and stealth uncommon in one so young, making not a sound as he donned his woolen undercoat. They had discussed it in confidence last night; they would have to be very quiet if they did not want to invoke his mother's wrath. Hakoda was certain they would return that evening to not one, but two very angry females, but he had a feeling it would be worth it.

"You ready?" he whispered as he knelt to help Sokka with his boots. Sokka's eyes were still so full of adoration and excitement when he put on his best approximation of a tough face and nodded.

"Let's do this."

Yeah… it was worth it.

Father and son crept their way on hands and knees through the narrow ice hallway, past Karana's room and into the den, where they hastily grabbed their coats and spears (well, Hakoda's spear and the stick Sokka had sharpened in its likeness). Hakoda was so proud of his little boy, suited up and ready to go on his first hunting trip. He placed a fond hand on Sokka's shoulder. The pair shared a meaningful glance and climbed out into the biting cold of the very early morning.

The two of them walked on silent feet through the village, giving the village's resident polar dog a wide berth and taking special care not to wake anyone. Though the men of the village, home for a much needed break after weeks at sea, were no doubt to be trusted, anybody else might warn his wife and end this little outing before it began.

Once they had safely reached the docks, however, they could afford to loosen up a bit. Hakoda led Sokka to a little two-man wooden canoe that he had loaded up for their journey just before fetching his partner. Hakoda usually went on these fishing trips alone, and had always wanted to bring Sokka along. He was becoming more and more aware, however, that each trip out to fight the Fire Nation might be his last, and he didn't want to lose this opportunity. He had tried to convince Karana, explaining at length how very _careful_ he would be with her precious son, but in the end, he had to resort to subterfuge. She'd forgive him… He hoped.

All such worries evaporated, however, when Sokka climbed deftly into the boat and sat behind his father.

"Still ready?" Hakoda asked, steadying the boat with a firm hand on the rope. Sokka nodded anxiously, barely able to keep still.

"Got your spear?"

"Yup."

"Got your rope?"

"Yup" Sokka replied after a brief search.

"You know, nobody's judging you. I won't be disappointed if you want to go back to bed."

"Da-ad!" Sokka whined.

"Ok, ok" Hakoda said, chuckling and releasing the rope. The two remained still allowed the steady ocean current to pull the boat away from the village. Everything was dark, but the moonlight revealed the barest of outlines of their home's small, domed buildings and the forests of ice in all directions. The village slid away from them.

After a moment, Hakoda reached down into the boat and pulled out his paddle. He inserted it into the water with practiced ease and drew it back with long, measured strokes, alternating sides. Behind him he heard Sokka attempting to imitate him. The boy's rhythm was poor and the paddle was clearly too long for him, but Hakoda's heart swelled with pride all the same.

The two of them talked very little as they guided the boat further and further from their village. The sun would not be rising for at least another hour, and they had to reach their destination before then to set up.

"Today we're hunting bull-oarfish, Sokka" Hakoda said to break the silence.

"Bull oarfish" Sokka repeated to himself.

"The key when hunting bull-oarfish is to be patient. They can be very difficult to hit from a distance. If you go off half-cocked and throw your spear too soon, you'll misjudge and miss them, and then you've lost your chance." Sokka nodded emphatically as he considered his father's wisdom. "And with monsters like _you_ in the village, you know what can happen if we come home without any meat." They shared a laugh.

"You must also be brave, Sokka," Hakoda began again. "Bull-oarfish are powerful and can easily drown a man, but if you do not have the heart to meet them face to face, you have no business hunting them."

"I'm brave enough, Dad."

"I'm sure you are" Hakoda replied, chuckling. "I'm sure you are."

They reached the Ice Fields without any great difficulty, and Hakoda hitched the side of their boat to one of the larger floes, securing it in place. The first pink glow of sunrise was just visible on the horizon.

"When the sun first rises, the bull-oarfish will come up in this area to breath and warm themselves in the light. We need to be ready for them." They spent the next twenty minutes or so in the steadily-increasing light learning how to prepare their harpoons. Each harpoon had to be fastened to the boat's bow in a precise way so the knots did not unbalance the spear in flight. Hakoda had seen hunts fail before on virtue of knots alone. Sokka was a quick study, though, and what he lacked in strength he made up for in enthusiasm. Hakoda had to tighten the knots up for him in the end, but by the time the sun had peeked fully over the ice, Sokka had practically mastered it. The little boy just beamed with happiness and accomplishment. They waited.

It was Sokka who heard the telltale sucking noise of a great fish gulping air first. He whispered as much to his dad, who released the boat from its position on the ice with his booted foot. Hakoda manipulated the paddle with precision and stealth born of a master sailor, holding a hand back to keep Sokka quiet.

Hakoda brought the boat gliding deftly through the water, meandering past obstacles in search for the source of the sound. Eventually, he caught the green glint of the fish's great, scaly tail undulating beneath the water, not three boat-lengths away. He brought the boat around to get a better view and point the beast out to his son. Sokka's eyes widened in fear and amazement. The bull-oarfish was at least twelve feet long, no doubt hundreds of pounds, and made of solid muscle. It pulsed lazily just beneath the surface of the water, occasionally swallowing a tremendous mouthful of air.

"Alright, Sokka. Don't be scared. Remember? A hunter must respect his prey, must show no fear. We must face him." Sokka looked dubious, but nodded all the same.

"'Atta boy. Now, I'm going to need you to hold the boat steady while I try to hit him. Be absolutely still, if you can, but if it feel's like the boat is going to fall, shift the paddle until we balance out again." Sokka nodded his assent.

"Alright. We can do this. Water Tribe, right?"

"Right," Sokka squeaked.

After helping Sokka to position his paddle without making noise, Hakoda stood. The boat wobbled a bit, then a bit more as Sokka tried to hold it steady, but the boy quickly got the hang of it and held it still. The fish was oblivious. Hakoda held one of the roped harpoons they had prepared aloft, aimed for a moment, and then let loose with all his might.

There was a mighty splash of water as the harpoon hit its mark. The fish, in all its magnificent glory, thrashed in agony for a moment, sending the boat skidding around it in a wide arc. Hakoda nearly fell out as the fish began swimming away at breakneck speed, dragging the boat and its hapless passengers along with it. They accelerated faster and faster, skidding atop the water as if in a motorboat, and Sokka whooped with laughter. A particularly powerful jolt yanked the paddle from his hands and nearly capsized the vessel, but Sokka chortled on, unconcerned. Hakoda found himself unable to resist joining in.

Until, that is, he turned and saw that the fish was heading for a massive iceberg, and therefore about to descend. In a flash of panic-induced might, Hakoda wrapped a strong arm around his son and jumped out of their boat just before it was sucked into the blue depths. He nearly tipped over the ice floe on which they had landed, but managed to regain his balance and leap to another, larger one in time.

The two of them looked at the spot where their boat had disappeared in silence, watching the more buoyant of their gear float to the surface.

"Wow," Sokka finally said, clearly impressed. Most of the gear would not be recoverable, but they fished out what they could reach, including Sokka's little wooden spear and, more importantly, Hakoda's paddle. Sokka sat down on the ice, exhausted.

"What are you doing, Sokka? We're not done here" Hakoda reminded him.

"Dad?" he asked.

"Let's go," Hakoda replied as he hopped to the next ice floe. Sokka's face lit up in another thrilled grin as he followed his dad from floe to floe, making their way across the ice fields as naturally as if they were solid ground.

It didn't take much walking to find the fish again. It was a mighty creature, but it had been injured and would not be able to hold the boat underwater for long. Indeed, they quickly spotted their boat tangled atop a spire of ice some hundreds of feet away, the fish thrashing ineffectually in a shallow pool nearby.

Normally, Hakoda would have simply sat himself on the ice and waited for the fish to perish of its own accord. Without a weapon, it was simply too dangerous to approach even a dying bull-oarfish. But Sokka had other plans. As soon as they reached the gargantuan creature's heaving sides, the boy rushed forward.

"Sokka, no!" Hakoda shouted, realizing all too late what was happening.

"Show no fear!" Sokka echoed as he plunged his stick into the great fish's head. A fountain of blood escaped the wound and the fish flailed about in agony. Hakoda looked on in disbelief as its massive tail struck Sokka in the stomach and sent the boy hurtling into the water.

No sooner had Sokka impacted the freezing ocean than had Hakoda leapt in after him. The cold was excruciating, but he ignored it. The only thing on his mind was saving his son at all costs. It didn't take him long to pull the unmoving boy out onto the ice, but Hakoda feared it was already too late.

Hakoda took no notice of the dying fish as he cradled his dripping son in his arms, pounding him on the back to extricate the water he had swallowed. For a terrifying minute or so, Sokka was unresponsive, but eventually he coughed and sputtered, returning to life almost as suddenly as he had lost it. Hakoda wept openly as he held his boy in a crushing hug.

"I'm ok, Dad. Water tribe" he declared. Hakoda wiped his eyes.

"Of course, Son. Water tribe."

Hakoda and Sokka made a fire from whatever salvaged gear they could still part with and sat by its warmth for most of the day, eating roasted strips of their mammoth catch while they waited for their clothes to dry out. It was of paramount importance when surviving in the cold extremes of the world to get warm before you worried about anything else. They would go home only when they were completely dry.

"We dry yet?" Hakoda would ask every once in a while. Sokka would look to the meal he was sharing with his dad and no one else, place an obligatory hand on his jacket to test its dampness (even well after it had completely dried).

"Nope" he would report, grinning mischievously.

"Yeah, me neither" Hakoda would lie, thinking about the inevitable firestorm when they returned home.

Eventually, however, they could delay no longer. They hitched the fish's immense carcass to the back of their boat with a section of rope, climbed in, and started the journey back. With only one paddle and an extra several hundred pounds for the return trip, it was hard work, and by the time they got home Hakoda's arms felt quite ready to drop off. And, as expected, Karana and Katara were not at all happy with them for sneaking off as they did. And apparently Hakoda would be sleeping in the den for the rest of his life, but seeing the look on Sokka's face as he regaled his jealous sister with tales of their adventures, Hakoda was certain.

It was all worth it.


	3. He Thinks In Truths: Combustion Man

He Thinks in Truths: The Combustion Man

Summary: A Combustion Man origin story.

--

There are few stories about the Combustion Man, and what few exist can be found to vary greatly according to the teller's whims (and his state of inebriation). He is not the stuff of legends. Legends have survivors, legends have witnesses, legends have _names_.

Still, even very guarded men can hardly pursue a career so flashy and conspicuous as that of a bounty hunter and not spawn at least _some_ whispers of speculation, least of all if they happen to be seven feet tall and half metal. There are few stories about the Combustion Man – and fewer still _true_ stories – but they do exist, hidden amongst the conjecture.

One of these lonely facts upon which the Fire Nation's drunkards have had to construct the Combustion Man's entire backstory is that this great battle tank of a man cannot be deceived; The Combustion Man tells no lies and suffers no liars. Beyond this, however, the realm of speculation must take over again. It is said that the awful, unblinking eye carved into his forehead can see right through a man's flesh and all the way into his soul. Another camp maintains that his light chakra, the pool of perceptive energy found in the forehead of every man in every nation, is so robust and mighty that no amount of illusion could possibly block its flow. It is even said that the talent is something of a myth, as all men are liars, all men who meet the Combustion Man are killed, and thus coincidentally it isn't _lying_ to him that one should avoid, but meeting him in the first place. Some of these theories are better than others.

But the reality of the matter is that choosing silence reorganizes a man's brain. The Combustion Man does not think in words anymore; he thinks in _truths_.

--

Life is full of illusions. To be more specific (and fairer), _human_ life is full of illusions. Good and evil, spirits and demons, natural and supernatural; all are products of the convoluted strata, the layers upon layers of symbols, that men call culture. This isn't to say that spirits did not exist, nor that these were unreasonable divisions, but to say that the _absoluteness _that culture invents is, in truth, quite finite. A man need not go far to find someone who disagrees with him, to discover that what he thought universal was not so.

The War was just one such 'universal' issue. Even among the people being subjugated, opinions about the Fire Nation and its motives were deeply divided. A great many shocked and angry people the world over were ready to assume that all Fire Nation citizens, from the lowest peasants to the loftiest royalty, were hell-spawned demons, entirely below human compassion and unworthy of mercy. They attacked because they _hated_ peace, because they _loved_ war, and each and every one of them had to be slain before the world could get back on its feet. Even so, a smaller, perhaps more optimistic group had been asserting for seventy years that the Fire Nation's attacks benefited no one but the royal family, that the citizens were at no fault. It appealed to their local universal worldviews to think that, aside from a very evil minority, the Fire Nation's populace was just as oppressed and victimized by the War as anybody else. If only Azulon were to be defeated, they claimed, the Fire Nation's vast legions of farmers and laborers, fishermen and factory workers, soldiers and civilians would all welcome world peace with open arms and celebrate their freedom in the streets.

For the most part, both of these rationalizations were patently untrue. Much of the Fire Nation benefited greatly from the War, and would continue to do so as long as the royal family saw fit to spend the great royal treasuries buying from Fire Nation factories. The War created jobs, stimulated industry and innovation, and brought a steady flow of exotic goods back to the homeland. The citizens' standard of living was higher than it had ever been. Young men were drafted and sent off to Earth Kingdom, never to return, and their families mourned their loss no less genuinely than did broken families the world over, but as far as pure economics were concerned, the War was the best thing to happen to the Fire Nation in a very long time.

Had he found occasion to consider it, fifteen-year-old Ban Shi Li would probably have agreed. The war had taken nothing from him, but given everything. His father, the foreman of one of the many great, belching war factories scattered across the Fire Nation's numerous islands (and himself the son, grandson, and great grandson of blacksmiths), depended on the War for his livelihood. He and Ban worked rigorous hours within the factory's smoky interior building the vast supplies of metal goods necessitated by an industrialized society. The majority of their work was for the Fire Lord, to equip his massive armies, but nonetheless the Shi Li family provided their town with the tools of everyday life, as their ancestors had for hundreds of years. They made tanks (little more, at this point, than steam-driven shells of armor and thus deliciously expensive), weapons, hoes and shovels, carriage wheels, nails and hammers, bolts and chains and brands and hinges, stakes and plows, silverware and shears and pliers, ovens and furnaces, and all manner of iron implement.

The Shi Li family could not be said to be incredibly wealthy, but they got along well enough. They lived in a comfortable house on a great, mossy terrace cut into the side of a long extinct volcano. They were respected and appreciated; if they went out to market, people would stop them on the streets to tell them how good a job they had done on their last commission, or to clap them bracingly on the back and assure them they were doing the Fire Lord's armies proud. Hardly a fortnight went by without a war minister visiting their factory, towing their newest weapons away atop the backs of komodo rhinos, and leaving them with stacks of gold pieces in trade. All of this prosperity depended on the War, and yet in Ban's mind, it all paled next to _her_.

The real treasure the war had given him was Jian. Her father had perished in battle a few years previous, and though he would never admit it aloud Ban rejoiced in this fact every day, as it had brought her into his life. His father and hers had been friends, and ever since Jian was orphaned, Mao Shi Li had provided for her as if she were his own daughter, raising her alongside Ban as siblings.

Of course Ban refused to see them as such, and indeed became rather defensive about it when anyone mistook them for brother and sister. She was important to him in a way a sister never could be; around her, he was gentler than his already great stature would seem to allow. Nonetheless, not even Ban's most impassioned defenses could make her any less a part of the Shi Li family.

--

One fateful morning found Ban and Jian navigating the narrow path that wove its way from their doorstep, down through the village, and to the distant Shi Li factory, the noonday sun shining pleasantly down upon them. On a normal day Ban would have already been several hours into his first shift at the factory, having woken up well before sunrise, but today he had been given the whole morning off and had the rare opportunity to enjoy Jian's company as he walked the familiar trail. Normally he would be uncomfortable breaking his schedule in the slightest and would long for the soothing rhythm of the factory's many cogs, but Jian's presence proved more soothing still and he was content.

The occasion for his morning off had been a meeting with Rilke, the local firebending master. Ever since Ban had nearly set a cup of tea to boiling with only his own body heat, his family had been trying to coax further firebending out of his calloused hands. His parents had been ecstatic – there hadn't been a firebender in either of their families for generations – and had insisted that he train under a master. Further attempts to harness his culture's deadly talent, however, had produced very little results, and it seemed no amount of tutelage could help. This morning had been no different, and Master Rilke had once again sported a poorly-concealed frown of disappointment as he returned to his home, defeated.

The truth was Ban did not much _want_ to learn firebending. He had tried, certainly, not wanting to disappoint his parents (and least of all Jian), but in the end all of the hours of breathing exercises accomplished little more than to make him feel like an idiot, the sweat of his effort making his shaven head look like polished marble. Ban did not nurse particularly ambitious dreams. He was content to work in the same factory until the day that he died and come home each night to a loving wife, and learning firebending and getting drafted into combat did not fit within that plan in the slightest. Fighting earthbenders in exotic locales held no allure for him; he was a simple man with simple needs. And so he did not, as he and Jian entered the town that morning, express even the tiniest disappointment.

--

Fire Nation culture was diverse and colorful (even if most of those colors were red or some variation thereof). On any given day, the town market was crowded with the most peculiar sundry of diversions from all over the world. Traveling exhibits and street performers and shopkeepers of all sorts made every day as bright and flashy as any carnival. With a full hour yet until Ban was expected at the factory, the two friends stopped to take in the festivities. They strolled down the streets, gasping at the trick firebenders, inspecting the market's wares, laughing at the jugglers when they messed up, and were having quite the good time indeed when they were interrupted.

"You…" a voice croaked. Ban and Jian turned to see a stunted, lopsided old man, his almost skeletal fingers pointed ominously up at Ban.

"You, have… _The Sight_!" the man claimed theatrically, his eyes widening until they seemed they should pop out of his skull. "You are a seer! Your chakra of light, it is… it is…" he fought for words, "unbelievable!" Ban choked back a laugh.

"You're a seer?" Jian asked, face alight with wonderment. The man nodded proudly.

"Yes ma'am, I can read your future, and your friend's too, tell you anything you like!" he boasted, gesturing back towards his stall. Jian needed no further convincing and in an instant was pulling Ban towards the fortuneteller's domicile.

He had protested, of course, telling her how ridiculous all fortune telling was, but in the end put up only token resistance and allowed her to drag him inside the cramped booth (despite being nearly double her weight). The room was heavily perfumed and flowing purple sheets hung gaudily from the ceiling. They took their seats around a table as tiny and asymmetrical as its owner. Ban begrudgingly fished the fortuneteller's steep fees from his pocket and slid them across the table. The man snatched the coins up like a viper, quickly inspected them for genuineness, and, satisfied, pocketed them in a flash.

The fortuneteller bustled about, gathering armfuls of peculiar-looking supplies to add to the mystique of his performance. He burned incense inside of a bowl as wide as a battleshield and its vapors filled the tiny room in no time, joining the many perfumes to make an odor Ban considered positively repulsive (and _he_ was well used to spending all day amidst the sulfur fumes of industry). The tiny little man lifted his hands to his head, drawing attention to the eye-shaped brooch atop his hat. He massaged the eye, kneading it with his bony fingers as if trying to press his prophecies out of it, and began to weave a tale of ambiguity, of pointless advice and vague glimpses into their futures. Ban resisted the urge to laugh derisively, if only to protect Jian's feelings. As the story wound on, however, a thought planted itself in his forehead. He did not know if it was the fumes or the man's exaggerated ritual, but suddenly he had to know.

And so, once their fortunes had concluded and Jian had skipped happily back out of the booth, Ban had leaned towards the fortuneteller and whispered his question. The man's eyebrows lifted in confusion until Ban gestured after Jian's retreating back and comprehension dawned.

"Yes, yes. I think you two will have a long, happy life together," he promised warmly. He hadn't even needed to touch the eye emblem on his hat, a fact that had Ban smiling, despite himself.

--

The two of them continued their trip, a new spring in Ban's step. He daydreamed as he walked, ignoring the path's rugged beauty. The factory loomed in the distance, belching a tower of smoke against the sky like a slumbering monster, but the two teenagers took little notice. Jian was largely kept away from the factory's many pounding machines, but she was a frequent enough visitor to know her way around, and the workers greeted her as she passed. Ban and Jian had just entered the smoky confines of the building when they were stopped.

"Ban! Jian! Come look at this!" It was Haor, one of the oldest engineers in the plant. His body was already caked with layer upon layer of soot, leaving only the whites of his eyes to identify him as anything other than a man-shaped charcoal briquette. He forced a long iron brand into Ban's hands.

"It's a dragon-moose brand!" he announced proudly. "Been workin' on it all week!" Ban inspected the fine curls of the brand's business end, recognizing immediately the elaborate insignia of one of the noble families from Ember Island. Haor grabbed the brand back. "Lemme show ya!" He grabbed a pinch of reddish clay from a small pile on the workbench and rubbed it into the brand's grooves, then did the same with a whiter clay, explaining as he did so. "See, the clay's like paint. You put the white on the parts you wanna be white an' the red on the parts you wanna be red and if you do it right," he held the end in the flames of a nearby furnace, "you get a darn nice mark, worthy of the Firelord himself!" He pulled the red-hot brand back out of the fire and thrust it into a thick strip of leather with a sharp sizzling sound. Setting the brand to one side, he proudly lifted the leather, which now sported a beautifully multicolored burn mark; black, white, and red. "The clay gets baked right into the skin. It's like an instant tattoo! Neat, huh?" Ban and Jian nodded their agreement.

"At first I didn't see why they couldn't just use a normal brand, but I gotta say this is one stylish scar. Might get one myself someday!" He laughed uproariously, causing soot and ash to slough off of his skin like black snow. The teenagers laughed with him, even as Ban searched for a graceful escape. Haor noticed and his brow furrowed suspiciously.

"Where ya' takin' her, Ban?" he asked, gesturing to Jian with the still glowing brand. Ban explained that he wanted her to see the coal belts; she had never seen them before and of course he would be ever so careful. In truth, manning the furnaces was one of the most boring jobs in the whole factory and Ban always viewed his turn with them with some amount of dread. It wasn't nearly as interesting as, say, the machine that stamped out armor plates for the Fire Navy's warships, but he was willing to pretend it was. Haor's features softened.

"Of course, of course. Be careful, you two. Oh, an' keep an eye out for my wrench. Lost 'er down there this mornin', and this one," he lifted a wrench from the workbench, a look of disgust on his face, "just ain't the same." Ban promised he would and grabbing Jian by the hand, led her into the factory's belly.

--

They maneuvered through cramped metal hallways, wound their way past towering columns of machinery, jumped down rickety metal staircases, ducked under scalding hot pipes, and generally ran the mazes of twists and turns that were the factory's bowels, until they finally found themselves in the very deepest levels, where conveyor belts laden with coal fed the four colossal furnaces that powered the entire facility. A constant stream of chalky black coal thundered down from ground level where it was delivered each week and had to be shepherded by some unlucky person. Large obstructions had to be kept off of the belts (lest the flow of coal be brought to a halt, at best slowing the entire factory's production and at worst proving a serious safety risk for the factory's many workers) and the great piles of coal that missed the belts shoveled back on. At present the piles were already a fair two meters high, making the spade leaning against a nearby wall look particularly meager in comparison, but Ban paid it no mind. He and Jian leaned against one of the safety railings, just out of reach of the wall of heat that poured off of the furnaces in a shimmering wave.

To anyone else, the view would hardly be considered romantic – the noise of the falling coal and the belts' many cogs was almost deafening, dense, acrid smoke filled the room with an unpleasant sulfur smell, and the air rippled with hellish warmth far in excess of the worst Fire Nation summers. All of this was lost on Ban and Jian, who instead only noticed the way the furnaces' glow lit one another's eyes. They kissed, deaf to the tumult around them.

They broke apart, both of them gasping for air. A thick layer of sweat and soot was already accumulating on their skin, but they were well used to this. Jian, however, wore a shocked look on her face, and Ban could not help but grin roguishly at her, proud of a job well done. His male pride did not last long, however, when she nearly collapsed, catching herself against the railing. Ban leapt forward to help her.

"Ban… It's too hot," she said, still choking on her own breaths. Ban looked up, a new realization dawning. It _was_ hot; hotter even than normal. He was panting like a poorly tuned steam engine, despite having long ago acclimated to the factory's searing air. A shallow pain traced its way across his forehead and rapidly deepened until it felt like his mind was splitting in half. His eyes darted to the temperature gauge on the nearest furnace, which had swung all the way to its rightmost extreme, where it strained futilely. Ban's eyes widened in fear. He had already seized Jian's wrist to drag her away when the furnace exploded. There was a flash of white, all-consuming pain, and then darkness.

--

Ban didn't know how long he spent battling fevered dreams. Colors and patterns and powerful insecurities bombarded his unconscious mind for what felt an eternity, but waned as his senses returned and order was gradually restored, plunging him back into consciousness, his mental struggle forgotten. Such was the nature of dreams; awakening brought only a very vague sense of a very long and pitched battle, and even that faded quickly. Ban opened his eyes and found himself staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. He took a hungry gulp of air, as if only now surfacing from deep underwater. His gasping quickly summoned a feminine face from the haze, which stared down at him with pity. He felt a hand touch his forehead.

"Hold on. I'll get your father," she said, and disappeared. Ban's mind was reeling, struggling futilely to piece his memories back into place. He tried to rise but could not summon the strength, managing only a lopsided fall back onto the bed. He tried again, to marginal effect, and only then invested a cursory glance toward his right hand, which was, for some reason, not quite keeping up with his left. A strangled cry of surprise tore from his throat as he saw not the well-muscled, functioning arm he had come to take for granted, but instead a bandage-swaddled stump that terminated with horrifying finality just below the elbow. Finding his right leg in a similar state was only slightly less disconcerting.

Sporadic images of what had happened returned to his mind in a series of disorienting flashes and it was only the timely arrival of his father's face that prevented him from crying out again. His father, clean and presentable for once, smiled weakly as he met his son's eyes. He leaned down carefully to hug Ban's neck, a gesture that Ban found himself unable to fully return.

"You're alright," Mao Shi Li observed quietly. His voice sounded far-off and distant, as if he were speaking from the other end of an endless metal tunnel, but his great relief was apparent. His moustache quaked with restrained emotion and his dark eyes twinkled with the remnants of shed tears. "Thank Agni you're alright… Your mother should be here –" Mao's words continued, but their meaning trailed off into the haziness that enveloped Ban's senses. Ban's mind struggled to reassemble a conscious thought, and it was only with considerable effort that he managed to open his mouth. It took him a few seconds to find his voice, which slurred and stumbled over itself as asked what had happened. His father frowned and looked away, the movement stirring the current of colors that assaulted Ban's eyes.

"One of the furnaces exploded. It turns out that…" he stopped, a nervous look on his face. "Well, Haor's been getting on in years, you know," he continued, "and he's liable to forget things from time to time. He…" he fidgeted anxiously, trying to decide whether to elaborate further or not, "Well he must have dropped his wrench into the furnace and plugged up the flow. The coal burned in the wrong chamber and overheated it." His words came out in a rush and seemed to swallow up the silence that followed them. For many seconds the words held no significance – they were just sounds reverberating, however ominously, about the room – and yet as Ban slowly translated them, an undeniable sensation of guilt took hold of his thoughts.

Ban's memories came thundering back in a distressing lurch. All the details of the fire and the pain jostled for position within his head. The furnace had exploded; Haor's wrench had blocked it. Ban had no doubt his father was truthful, and yet the utter falsehood of this explanation stared unabashedly in his mind's eye. He had been right there and had checked for blockage the instant he had noticed the temperature. He doubted such an obvious problem would have escaped his immediate notice, and he certainly wouldn't have put off work even to spend time with Jian had anything looked amiss. At this reminder of his friend, the puzzle took a sickening new color. She had been there with him. She had been the first to notice something was wrong, to notice the heat that very nearly killed him. An awful thought occurred, and he said her name.

The look on his father's face confirmed his worst fears.

--

To die by fire was the noblest way to go, and it didn't matter how or why. Fire released the soul from the body and sent it on its way to join its ancestors with the Great Agni, high in the sky. That the remains of all slain Fire Nation citizens were fully cremated was more a concession to the living than to the dead, a ritual that acknowledged the dead person's unification with the spirit world and thanked them for the power that they would shine down upon the living.

Jian's funeral took place atop one of the mossy hills east of the village. She had burnt to death by the time the engineers had discovered her and Ban amongst the rubble of the coal belts, and there could be no public viewing of her body. Instead she rested inside a wooden coffin, piled atop a great stack of lumber gathered from the nearby forests. Dozens arrived to pay their respects and watch the pyre's towering column of smoke twist into the sky.

Ban observed from a distance, not wanting to hear the sage's words, nor watch him ignite the sepulcher that contained his friend's remains. He stood wobbly on the first generation prosthetics his father had thrown together so that he could attend; little more, for now, than a crutch-like shaft of metal anchored to the knee. The construction of a newer leg with a jointed foot and a claw-like arm was well underway, and were the situation different Ban might have given thanks that he was son to such a mechanically-inclined man. Unfortunately, the accident's cost was much, much higher than a mere pair of limbs, and since no amount of fancy metalwork could bring Jian back, that the overbearing humidity of the day soaked Ban's bandages and his false leg cut painfully into the flesh of his thigh was of little significance.

--

The accident at the factory caused quite a stir, but life had to go on. Gossip and rumors about Ban, Jian, and Haor spread like wildfire, but burned out just as quickly as the masses turned their attention to newer tragedies. The Fire Nation rarely lacked for interesting news, as the seventy-year-old war in the Earth Kingdom dragged onwards. There were defeats and victories, soldiers were lost and territories were conquered, and the death of only a single Fire Nation girl faded from the public's mind.

This did not bother Ban. In fact, he wished that the world would forget what happened entirely. As it was, however, his metal limbs and the palpable darkness that had overtaken his mood since Jian's death made him a walking reminder, and everywhere he went people would stare at him piteously. He did not talk to them and they did not talk to him, a far cry from their previously friendly relationship, but in the end the villagers agreed that no one could really blame him. He had seen his sister killed and was himself forever maimed, they reasoned, the sort of thing that could mess anyone up.

Ban did his best to keep living but found it harder and harder to get through each day. In the days and weeks following the accident, his father became extremely lenient with his hours, letting him sleep in and only assigning him light work in the factory, a gesture that Ban did not appreciate in the least. He knew his father's heart was in the right place, but he'd long since found that only by throwing himself into his work could he keep his mind off of his troubles. Amongst the hellish smoke and heat of the factory, he could surrender his thoughts and become a mere machine, unburdened by regret. He frequently traded shifts with the other engineers, bent on retreating into the most strenuous work he could find.

In truth, Ban's missing limbs proved very little detriment in his field. He did not, as a rule, have to move very quickly, and so as long as his leg could propel him to the factory and back, he demanded little of it. His right hand, which bore a pair of curved iron hooks, could easily grasp the handle of a hammer, and more helpful yet was quite fireproof, allowing him to retrieve objects from the forges without the use of tongs. On a productive day, Ban could easily keep up with the best engineers in the factory, crafting sword after sword without tiring.

As the weeks passed, Ban began to get terrible headaches. They would first appear as a mere stitch across his forehead, but as time went on would grow more ambitious in size and severity until his entire head pulsed with agony like a burning torch. None of the doctors or sages his parents called to examine him could determine the headaches' cause, and usually attributed them to Ban having hit his head in the accident. Ban always protested, explaining how he'd felt the same way immediately _before_ the explosion, but could provide no better conclusion. It was only when Master Rilke visited them for dinner that any of the Shi Li family connected Ban's headaches to his still-dormant firebending potential. He had not had a firebending lesson since the morning of the explosion; Rilke suggested, almost offhandedly, that his pent up firebending energy was manifesting as pain and that he ought continue his breathing exercises, if only to hold it under control.

And so Ban did, and found it immediately helpful. Early each morning, even before he began the journey to the factory, he would climb to his house's roof, assume a meditative stance, and stare into the sky, slowly filling his lungs to capacity with each puff of his broad chest. A mere half hour of this each morning served to fully sate the pain and force it deeper into his skull, where it burbled like a cauldron of molten lead. As he watched the first tendrils of sunlight peek over the horizon, Ban found himself thinking about things he'd never considered before, the restrained pool of energy in his head lending an uncommon clarity to his thoughts.

--

It was over two years before Ban realized what power that pool of energy could unleash.

He was plodding along the path towards the factory as fast as his metal leg would let him. The springs in his ankle squeaked like an old mattress and the prosthetic's polished edge dug into the calloused flesh on his thigh quite uncomfortably, but he ignored the discomfort and pushed onwards, panting from the effort. His father had, once again, 'forgotten' to wake him and he was late to work. The sun had already crested over the horizon in the east when Ban awoke, and he had decided to eschew his breathing exercises, saving his lungs instead for a steady stream of cursing as every other footstep sent a spark of pain lancing up his side. Accordingly, his head began to pulse uncomfortably.

He was roughly halfway to the factory when he could take it no longer and he doubled over from the pain, falling down onto the narrow, rocky path. His eyes clenched and he breathed deeply, trying to restrain the agony in his forehead. It did not abate, but only grew fiercer. He blinked furiously and rubbed at his scalp with his remaining hand in a futile attempt to knead the headache away. It worsened still further. Through his fluttering eyelids, Ban caught a glimpse of a nearby moss-covered rock browning as it dried, then rapidly catching fire, leaving only a thin layer of black ash on its surface. He managed to rise to his feet again and call raggedly for help, but the action unbalanced him and he found himself rolling down a steep hillside, finally coming to a rest in a muddy ditch. The mud began to boil almost instantaneously, sizzling and churning like bacon grease. The pain in Ban's head continued to roar.

Thrashing about with the adrenaline-laced fury and endurance that only truly endangered people can muster, Ban began to drag himself up the nearest hillside, sinking his clawed hand deep into the side like a grappling hook. He grunted with the exertion, all too aware that the grass was burning all around him. After several grueling minutes, he reached the top and collapsed. He wanted, truly wanted, to give a satisfied sigh, as if climbing the hill had in some way benefited him, but his pounding head remained unbearable. He staggered to his feet again and promptly bumped into a solid, knee-high object. He leaned down and grabbed onto it for dear life, begging it to steady him, until he opened his eyes.

It was Jian's grave, a polished stone block inscribed with her name. He had climbed the very hill on which Jian had been cremated. The cruelty of this coincidence welled up inside of him and he stood and roared, lending his anger a release that echoed across the landscape. At the same time, another, far more destructive release sent all of the pain and energy that had been welling up within his head forth in a noisy beam. It cut through the humid morning air like an arrow, impacting a rocky outcropping a few hundred meters away. The entire hilltop exploded with an earth-shaking boom, sending burning debris raining down in all directions. The recoil of his own head exploding, together with the shock at watching a mountain explode along with it, nearly knocked Ban over.

Ban stared at the decapitated hill for a long while as the smoke cleared and the damage he'd done became apparent. He rubbed at his forehead in wonderment. The pain was gone, but the barely-restrained energy still licked at the insides of his skull. Without considering the consequences, Ban shifted his gaze to another hill. He breathed deeply, feeling each breath swell the sensation in his head like bellows did coal, and imagined another explosion, nodding his head abruptly for emphasis. The second hill obligingly exploded, showering the land no less impressively than had the first. Ban looked about in amazement. No one had seen him. He glared at Jian's stone marker again and felt rage grip his innards, filling him with angry resolve. His face twisted into a frown and he marched resolutely onwards, out, away from the road, and into the wilderness.

By the time Ban finally made his way back to the factory, a spectacular swathe of destruction had been cut through the landscape. Nearly every hill for miles had been blown to pieces; the island had eroded more in that morning than it had in the previous five hundred years combined. By that afternoon, rumors of the 'forest fires' had spread even farther than the fires themselves, and people throughout the whole Fire Nation were puzzling as to what could have caused so much damage so quickly.

--

Ban was twenty-one when a commotion broke out at the factory. His father rushed into the room where Ban was forging swords and insisted that he go home immediately. The mixture of fear and excitement on his father's face was enough that he did not protest, but instead put down his half-finished sword and left without a word. He walked home, his mind latching onto the familiar thump-hiss of his pneumatic-cushioned leg against the ground.

It was almost two hours before his father finally joined him at their kitchen table. Father and son were, as usual, covered in ash, and Ban's mother would surely kill them when she saw the mess they had made of her home, but something told Ban it wouldn't matter. He asked his father what happened. The smaller man looked up at his son, his face unreadable.

"Well, we… That is to say, Loi Zu, one of the new engineers. You remember him, right?" Ban nodded. "Well, Loi Zu was fixing one of the coal belts, it broke last week, and had to disassemble the floor panels and get under it to do it. He fixed it just fine, don't worry; he's a smart lad." Ban remained silent until his father continued. "Well, when he was down there. He… He found Haor's lost wrench." His voice tapered off. "You know, from the accident. He had apparently dropped it through the floor, not into the furnace." Ban's eyes widened and he looked at his father fearfully.

"I know, I know," his father said, patting Ban's shoulder sadly. "I miss her too. The men fought over it; they want to know what really caused the explosion, accused me of covering it up. Haor vouched for me, Agni bless him. You know he never forgave himself for what happened." It was true. Ban's father had refused to fire him, but the old man had never regained the pleasant friendliness he once had.

"I sent you home to stop the others from pestering you with questions." There was a long pause as Mao fought for verbal purchase. At length, he continued. "I doubt we'll ever know what happened now, but I don't want you to get any more torn up over this than you have to, all right? Jian wouldn't want us to miss out on life because we were too busy missing her." Ban nodded sadly. His father had been offering the same advice for years; Ban knew he was right, and yet found it impossible to follow.

"I'll see you later, Son," his father said, his hand lingering on Ban's shoulder for a moment before he walked out of the room.

--

The thing about rumors is that, while any individual one is almost certainly fiction, so many are created and spread that they have a sickening ability to discover the truth, if only by accident. Add to the truth an element of intrigue like, oh say, a giant with two metal limbs who hadn't talked in public in years, and a veritable scorpion-beehive opened. After the news of Haor's innocence had reached the world's ears, Ban felt the suspicious glares of the townspeople wherever he went. _Murderer_ they called him behind his back, even as they maintained their usual pitying faces in his presence. It was maddening. Ban didn't think any of them knew about his unusual abilities or how utterly possible their accusations were; they levied them only because he had been there at the time of Jian's death, and giving him an involvement was so much more interesting than the alternative.

More painful still was the way his father looked at him. Ban knew he would never ask him to elaborate on what caused the accident. He knew that his father knew how much he had loved Jian, how much he would have given up to save her the most minor of pains, and yet his father had been the only one never to mention the destruction of the hills to Ban. Usually, Mao was so earnestly interested in everything that happened in the world, and so bent on keeping his son from a complete social withdrawal, that he'd start up any conversation he could, just to keep Ban talking. He had remained suspiciously silent, however, on how so many hills, so nearby, had been blasted into rubble. Somehow he knew Ban had done it, and had forgiven him. Nonetheless, Jian had been very much his daughter, and Ban could not help but notice a cold new distance from the man he respected most in the world.

Most unbearable of all, of course, was that Ban knew the world was right about him. He _had_ murdered Jian; it was no longer possible to deny. The pain in his head, the fast breathing, the way that the air had rippled and exploded, none were coincidences. _He_ had forced the furnace to explode; _he_ was to blame, and no matter how many times he forced himself to acknowledge that it had been an accident, that he would never have done such a thing willingly, the guilt gnawed away at him without mercy.

Ban's frustration built as the days went by. At work, he had to deal with the other engineers' constant questions, had to stay silent to avoid stoking the power struggle that threatened to overtake the whole factory. In the village, he had to endure the whispers and the new way the townspeople gawked at him. At home, he had to withstand the listless looks his father gave him. Even when he was alone, his own conscience asked those same questions, made those same whispers, looked at him the same way. His simple lifestyle was collapsing out from under him, and nothing he did brought his mind any peace. The sloshing presence in his head flourished, feeding off of his anger and begging for an explosive solution with greater and greater insistence until Ban could take it no longer.

--

He left late at night, shortly after his parents had gone to bed. He took nothing with him aside from the clothes on his back and the two lifeless metal souvenirs he carried at all times; he wanted as little to remind him of his old life as possible. He plodded his way down to the slumbering village, his foot taking him to one of the few buildings that remained lit so late.

Failure was short in coming. The clerk at the army recruitment office took one look at the metallic glint of his limbs and calmly explained that everything he did made a difference, that staying at home and raising a family was no less heroic, no less valuable in the Fire Lord's eyes, than joining the military. All of Ban's attempts to explain that his prosthetics didn't slow him down and demonstrations to this effect were cut off and ignored in favor of this obvious lie. Ban only barely managed to walk out of the building without (quite literally) exploding at the close-minded bureaucrat.

Ban took a dejected seat on the building's front steps, cradling his forehead with his remaining fingers and fuming quietly, trying to knead some sense into the wrathful tumult inside his mind. He had never wanted much; only a simple life, full of simple pleasures, safe and sound in the Fire Nation. He hadn't wanted adventure, hadn't wanted to see the world, only a quiet, happy existence – but that was too much to ask. Now that he wanted nothing more than to get away, to throw himself into danger in a desperate attempt to inject some meaning and order into his painful life, he was denied this as well. The injustice fueled the fires in his head.

Perhaps it was luck, then, that had him notice the local warden's notices. They were pinned in a row on the side of the building, bounties and warnings and commands, and Ban probably would not have offered them a second glance if he had not recognized a very familiar face. He stood and stared at the hand-drawn wanted poster. It was crude and caricatured, but from the drawing's scrawny feet and hunched posture all the way to the eye-shaped broach on its hat it was unmistakable as the very same fortuneteller Ban had visited the morning of the accident. Ban tore the poster from the wall, his frown deepening. The man was wanted dead or alive for loudly prophesizing of the Avatar's imminent return and the Firelord's defeat.

Ban quickly made up his mind.

--

The fortuneteller's tiny shack, hidden way out amongst the forested crags of the island's eastern border, did not stand a chance. Metal fingers hooked their way through the doorjamb and tore the door from its hinges without preamble, and the diminutive seer huddled to the ground in terror as a giant man stepped through the splinters.

Ban did not bother telling him why he was here, nor did he gloat about how easy his supposed best friend had been intimidated into telling Ban where he was. He did not offer the fortuneteller time to grovel at his feet or buy his life; he merely stared down at the awful, grimy little man writhing about on the ground, the seller of false hopes, with an unkind contempt. The fortuneteller looked up and a glimmer of hope and realization dawned on his face.

"You…" he accused, pointing up at Ban's forehead with the same rickety, skeletal hand he had those years ago. Ban did not respond for some time, and when he did, his voice was low and dangerously quiet.

"You lied."

A colossal boom shook the whole island.

--

That night, several among the townspeople awoke to the sounds of a single hammer and furnace echoing from the darkened factory. The peculiar, eye-shaped brand was discovered the following morning, resting in a smoldering fire.

--

A/N: There we have it, a (perhaps excessively) angsty background for the Combustion Man. I have tried, in this story, to be less encyclopedic and more stylistic, an endeavor in which I feel I was at least somewhat successful. I hope you enjoyed it!

And a very special thanks to Rasputin Zero, who edited this story and helped it along in the 2 weeks it's been since I started it.


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